


Where the treetops glisten

by sixchord



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-12-06 14:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sixchord/pseuds/sixchord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Peter run Hale and Hearty Nursery, providing the police station with holiday greenery.  When the sheriff comes to the nursery to pick out a Christmas tree, he brings Stiles along.  The problem is, Stiles keeps coming back...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the treetops glisten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shakingsun](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shakingsun).



> FINALLY.
> 
> So forever ago, I signed up to do the Wolf Pack Charity Auction sponsored by the Sterek Campaign. The ever lovely [teasip](http://teasip.tumblr.com) commissioned a fic from me and FINALLY I am done.
> 
> She asked for: an au where the Hales run a nursery; they decorate all the public offices in town for free. The sheriff and Stiles come to pick out a Christmas tree, and Stiles keeps spouting off Latin plant names (he memorized them in high school to impress Lydia).
> 
> The title is from "White Christmas." The two Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs mentioned are "Carol of the Bells" and "Christmas Canon."

Derek kicked open the door of the nursery truck and stepped out, tucking his apron up under his jacket.  The candy-striped apron was fine for making wreathes at the nursery, but Peter insisted he wear it on deliveries.  The way he figured, he was still wearing the stupid thing so he wasn’t exactly breaking the rules.

He grabbed the giant box of wreathes and garlands and trudged through the gray snow to the station.  He poked his head in and said to the receptionist, “Peter called you?”

The guy blinked at him and said, “What?”

Derek sighed.  He’d never seen this guy before so he was probably a new hire. “Is the sheriff in?”

“Yes, let me just—“  He started reaching for something on his desk.

Before the receptionist could hit a buzzer or anything, Derek walked the ten feet to the sheriff’s office and pounded on the door.  “Delivery from Hale and Hearty Nursery,” he said, feeling like a complete, if procedurally-sound, idiot.  “If you don’t come out and direct me, I’m just going to decorate how I want.”

“Sweet Jesus, no,” the sheriff said, opening the door and giving Derek a stern look.  He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame.  “Wreathes on every door and garlands on the reception desk,” he said, rolling his eyes.  “And none of that perpendicular business like last year, it made the deputies nervous.  I want swags.”

Derek raised his eyebrows.  “I’ll be sure to avoid right angles in the future, sir,” he said, face completely straight.  He hefted the box higher in his arms.  “Okay if I start?”

“Yeah, get out of here, I’m a busy man,” the sheriff said, closing his door in Derek’s face.

Of course, while he was sitting on the floor making sure all the sweeps of garland were hanging evenly, the sheriff came out to watch him, so he couldn’t have been all that busy.  “Please note that there isn’t a single right angle to be found,” Derek said as he moved a bit of garland one inch to the right.  Perfect.  Completely symmetrical.  “And everything’s even so if your deputies are uncomfortable it isn’t my fault.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” the sheriff said, taking a sip of coffee.  He bent down and offered Derek a plate of ginger cookies.  “Stiles made them.  Family recipe.”

“Thanks,” Derek said, wiping his hand on his knee before taking a cookie.  He bit into it and hummed in surprise.  “These are actually good.”

The sheriff snorted.  “Why do you think I keep him around?”  He started to walk back to his office, but he stopped a few feet short.  “Hey, Derek?” he said.

“Yeah,” Derek said, still munching on his cookie and adjusting the garland.

“You guys sell trees, right?  Christmas trees?”  When Derek looked over, he was fidgeting with the cookie plate.  “It’s just, we haven’t had a real tree since—well.  And I think it’s about time.”

Derek stood up, brushing off his knees.  “Yeah, we sell trees,” he said.  “Just come on over to pick one out.  Anytime between nine and five.  If you come today, I can cut it down for you.”

The sheriff nodded brusquely and thrust the cookies at Derek.  “Sounds good,” he said as Derek took another.  “I’ll see you, then.”  He set the plate on the reception desk and went back to his office.

Derek squinted as the door swung shut.  He frowned down at his cookie and shrugged.

\--

There were many reasons Derek sometimes hated the holidays.  The sudden surge of commercialism.  All the toy catalogues that still came addressed to Peter.  The Salvation Army.  But Peter was the main reason.  Peter’s choice in holiday music was the second.

Derek stormed into the customer service shack, pointed at Peter—yes, he was being dramatic, no, he didn’t care—and bellowed, “ _Turn it off!_ ”

Of course, at that moment, Derek’s high school English teacher popped her head out from behind a giant wreath and gave him a very unimpressed look.

“Sorry, Mrs. Hawes,” he said, doing his best to look at least a little ashamed.  He walked over to Peter and glared at him.  “Turn it off,” he said.  Peter just raised his eyebrows, so Derek sighed and said, “Please?”

“Well,” Peter said, rolling his eyes and reaching for the loudspeaker volume.  “Since you asked so nicely.”  He turned off his holiday-themed death metal.  A few seconds later, a pleasant harp rendition of “Away In a Manger” started up.  “Better?” Peter said.

Derek just raised one eyebrow and walked away.  It was starting to snow, and the tinkly harp music fit the mood much better than whatever Peter had been playing before.  Derek pulled his coat tighter around himself and headed back to the tree lot.  He’d been in the middle of cutting trees when Peter’s monstrosity had assaulted his ears.

He picked up his chainsaw and was about to pull the chain when a hand landed on his shoulder.  He made a noise that he would be embarrassed about later and he whirled around to face—the sheriff.  “Oh,” he said.  “Hi.”  He lowered the chainsaw and smiled a little.  “Sorry.”

“Looks like somebody didn’t get his sister’s super senses,” the sheriff said, raising one eyebrow.  “We had to stop bringing in snickerdoodles because no matter where she is in the station, she swoops in and eats them all.  It’s really strange.”

“Cinnamon has a very distinctive smell,” Derek said, hefting his chainsaw onto his shoulder.  “You came to look at a tree?”

The sheriff nodded, rubbing at his short hair.  “The only problem is, I seem to have lost my—“

“ _Betula_ _papyrifera_!”  A few seconds later, a kid Derek recognized as the sheriff’s son tripped out from behind a pine.  He grinned at Derek and waved his hand back over his shoulder.  “You have birch trees, that’s so awesome, aren’t they great in fall?”  He batted a clump of snow off his puffy red coat and his eyes actually twinkled.  Really.  Twinkled.

Derek blinked.  “So, what kind of tree are you looking for?” he said to the sheriff.

“I—isn’t there only one kind?” the sheriff said, frowning.  “I just want a Christmas tree.”

“That’s actually a common misconception,” the kid—Stiles—said, tripping over and knocking against his dad’s shoulder.  “But in fact there are over a hundred different species of pine trees.  Obviously not all of them are Christmas trees because, well, some of them are really big, but yeah, there are a lot of pines.  My personal favorite is the bristlecone—“

“What kind would you recommend?” the sheriff said to Derek, elbowing Stiles in the ribs.

\--

Two days later, while Derek was using his loppers to cut branches for swags, Stiles came back.

“Did you know that Douglas firs aren’t really firs?” he said from behind Derek.  Derek rolled his eyes and glanced over his shoulder.  Stiles grinned and shoved his hands into the deep pockets of his red coat.  “Genus _Pseudotsuga_ ,” Stiles said.  “Real firs are genus _Abies_.”

Derek blinked at him.  Stiles’ eyes were doing that twinkling thing again, and his nose was red on the tip.  It was almost endearing.  “Can I help you?” Derek said flatly, crossing his arms, still holding the loppers.  Derek didn’t handle endearing very well.

Stiles deflated a bit.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I wanted to buy a wreath.”

Derek nodded and said, “That’ll be the building in the middle.  Peter can help you.”  He turned around and went back to lopping, ignoring the way his ears suddenly felt kind of warm.  After a moment, Stiles left.  Derek could hardly hear his footsteps in the snow.

\--

Sometimes Derek looked forward to the day Peter would finally retire, if only because then Derek would have absolute control over the music.  It wasn’t just that Peter intermittently played Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  It was that Peter had programmed the sound system to crank up ten notches every time he played Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  Derek hated Christmas music in general, and he found Peter’s music especially offensive.

The day after Stiles had come for a wreathe, Derek was chopping down a tree to the pleasant bass line of Pachelbel’s Canon when all of a sudden the electric guitars came in.  He could almost handle it but then a woman started singing, and he stormed out of the tree lot.  As if Peter’s choice in music wasn’t enough, a familiar red—and surprisingly solid—form appeared from behind a particularly bushy fir, crashing into Derek’s chest.

While Derek fished Stiles out of a snow drift, he took a moment to be just a little pleased about all the snow melting in Stiles’ buzzed hair.  Then he felt kind of like a jackass, so he picked a chunk of snow out of Stiles’ hair.  Stiles looked really confused.

“Sorry about that,” Derek said, crossing his arms.  He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was apologizing for knocking Stiles over or for awkwardly grooming him.  Stiles just smiled tightly and brushed at his coat and hair with his mittened hands.  “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I—“ Stiles screwed his mouth up and looked away, his face going a bit pink.  “You know what, never mind, I can just, you know, Wikipedia is very helpful and I’m sure you have much better things to do than—“  He cut himself off by sneezing.

Derek manfully choked back a laugh at the surprised look on Stiles’ face.  He vaguely remembered the kid being a freshman the year he graduated from high school, so he had to be in his twenties, but Stiles just struck him as young.  “Well, since you drove all the way out here, you may as well ask.”

Stiles chewed on his lip for a second and then said, “Should I put sugar in the water?  Because I’ve heard it both ways and, I mean, I don’t want to waste sugar when I could be—”  He paused and then his forehead twitched.  “Yeah, never mind, I’m just gonna go now.”  He turned around and started to walk off.

“You don’t need to put anything but plain water in,” Derek said, shaking some snow out of one of his gloves and resolutely not looking at Stiles.  He knew that he was a socially awkward jerk, and he wasn’t surprised that Stiles didn’t want to talk to him anymore, but, well.  “In some cases, sugar just makes the trunk seal up again.”

Stiles took a step forward.  “Yeah?”

“Save the sugar for cookies,” Derek said.  He couldn’t tell if Stiles was blushing or if it was just the cold, but he felt a stupid twinge in his belly.  It caught him off his guard and as a consequence, one side of his face quirked up and he said, “Hot chocolate?”  As soon as he said it, he kind of wanted to punch himself.

“I—what?” Stiles said, stuffing his hands into his armpits.

“Do you want some?”  Whatever had come over him, he had to stick to his guns.  He jerked his thumb in the direction of the shack and raised his eyebrows.

A few minutes later, when Stiles was curled over a steaming mug of hot chocolate, inspecting the various wreathes, Derek’s stomach did that weird thing again.  He decided to chalk it up to indigestion.

“So,” Stiles said, looking up at him suddenly.  There was a bit of chocolate foam on his upper lip.  “If you guys are Hale, who’s Hearty?”

Before Derek had a chance to even roll his eyes, Peter let out a very barrel-chested laugh from the other room.  Stiles jumped, just managing not to spill his hot chocolate.  Peter swooped in the doorway and slid over, grinning.  “It’s a joke,” Peter said.  “A play on words, if you will.”

“What he really means,” Derek said, taking a sip of his own hot chocolate, “is that it makes him feel superior when people ask who Hearty is.”  He finally got his eye roll in and added, “It’s not even a good joke.”

Peter pursed his lips and then went back to the shop room.  Derek wanted to be relieved that he’d left, since, well, Peter had a habit of being creepy and driving people away (which Derek was usually fine with), but if he knew anything about Peter, it was that he would find a really creative way to get back at Derek.  Peter hated looking foolish.

For a minute, Derek considered making an awkward excuse to Stiles about needing to meet a tree quota or something, a reason to go back into the trees, but then Stiles cleared his throat and said, “Um, so how did you get into the nursery business?”

Derek sighed and was about to answer when “Carol of the Bells” blasted through on the speakers, loud and clear and with more electric guitars than Derek could stand.  He resisted the urge to throw his head back and groan.  Instead, he just picked up his hot chocolate and gestured for Stiles to follow him out the back door. 

“Um,” Stiles said.  “Is that—Trans-Siberian Orchestra?”

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Yes.”

“That’s cool and all, but it’s—really loud,” Stiles said, shifting side to side.  “That doesn’t seem very—customer-friendly.”

“He likes to keep us all on our toes,” Derek said, rolling his eyes.  He wrapped his hands around the warm mug and began plotting ways to undo whatever hacks Peter had done to make his festive death metal so loud.

Stiles kicked at a lumpy pile of snow, which burst apart in a shower of sparkles.  “So,” he said.  “Nursery?”

“Family business,” Derek said.  Stiles nodded, like he knew why that was so important—which, he probably did, his dad would have been at the scene of the accident.  Besides, even though it had been a long time, small towns never really forgot anything.

After a moment of silence, Stiles twitched his head at Derek and said, “ _Picea pungens._ ”

Derek turned to look at the blue spruce behind him.  “Why do you know all these names?”

Stiles sighed.  “See, there was this girl.”  He smiled lopsidedly and slurped at his hot chocolate.  “Lydia Martin.  Practically perfect in every way and completely oblivious to my existence.  And for some reason I thought memorizing Latin names would impress her.”  He scratched at the back of his neck.  “It didn’t, in case you’re wondering.”

That twinge again, a little more central this time, less in his belly than his solar plexus.  “I remember her,” he said.  He even remembered Stiles fawning over her in the school cafeteria.

“Everybody remembers Lydia,” Stiles said.  “Because she’s a goddess.”  He grinned at Derek, his eyes crinkling.  “Maybe if I’d memorized the periodic table I’d have had a chance.”

Derek snorted, brought his cup to his mouth to hide his smile.  “So you just remember all these names in case you have a chance to impress her?”

“No, that would be ridiculous,” Stiles said, waving one hand dismissively.  “Lydia is at MIT, it would be really awkward for me to just whip out the Latin over Skype.  You’ve gotta keep these things organic, man.  No, I actually, well, after memorizing all that random stuff I just sort of, you know, became a botany major.”  He shrugged, his puffy red coat crackling.

Derek frowned.  “Botany?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said.  He must have heard the tone in Derek’s voice, because he frowned a bit, scrunching up his nose.  “Why?”

Derek raised one eyebrow and said, “Kind of seems like a botany major might know how to keep a Christmas tree alive.”

Stiles’ face went bright red.  “Oh,” he said.  “Um.”  He fumbled with his mug and spilled hot chocolate on his hand.  “Well,” he said, looking everywhere but at Derek.

“For future reference, playing dumb isn’t attractive,” Derek said, feeling suddenly rather warm. 

“I wasn’t playing dumb,” Stiles said, his eyebrows drawing together.  “It’s just, you didn’t, how else could I justify—“  He broke off and glared at Derek, which was both hilarious and kind of endearing.  “I think what I’m trying to say is, Martha’s has really good pie, and I love to eat pie, and I would really like to eat some pie with you, if you get what I’m—“

Derek held up his hand.  Stiles’ mouth snapped shut.  “I only eat cherry pie,” Derek said.

“Oh,” Stiles said in a rush of air.  “Yeah?  I mean, Martha makes a mean cherry pie, and you can even get it with ice cream, if you want, and she’ll even warm up the pie if that’s what you’re into.”  He blinked a few times.  “So, uh.”  He took a few steps toward Derek.  “Thoughts?”

Derek stepped forward, crossed his arms.  “Favorable,” he said.

Stiles narrowed his eyes and looked away for a few seconds.  When he looked back at Derek, he said, “I don’t get you.”

Derek huffed out a laugh.  Stiles’ mouth twitched and his eyes did that sparkling thing again.  “Well,” Derek said.  “Here’s what you need to know.  As co-owner of the nursery, I have the executive power to take a pie break whenever I want.”

“Well, in that case,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes.  “Meet you in the parking lot in ten?”

“Sounds like a plan.”  Derek held his hand out for Stiles’ chocolate mug, pretending not to notice the way Stiles’ fingers twitched when he handed it over.  He walked in their footsteps back to the shop, fighting down a really stupid grin. 

“Derek,” Stiles said right before he went into the shack.

“Yeah,” Derek said, glancing over his shoulder.

Stiles fidgeted with the cuff of his coat sleeve.  Then he looked back up and grinned.  “In case you’re wondering, _Abies fraseri_ is my favorite.  I figured you should know, since you’re obviously so passionate about Christmas trees.”

Derek laughed and shouldered his way through the door.  For once, he didn’t even mind Peter’s awful taste in music.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all can find me at [my tumblr](http://sixchord.tumblr.com)!


End file.
